Peasant families, 100 years of history (and transmission)

This November 27, 2023 on M6, like every Monday since the end of August, Karine Le Marchand is in prime time. Unlike the other weeks, it is not the potential love story between farmers and their suitors that viewers will be able to follow but that of agriculture over the last 100 years, as already proposed in several documentaries.

6 farming families, spanning several generations

The originality of Peasant families, 100 years of historypresented and produced by thehost of L’Amour est dans le Préand directed by Delphine Cinier: the history serves as a backdrop and a common thread between six families of operators, in different French regions, and the successive generations on these farms.

Among the numerous archive images to (re)discover, interspersed are those filmed at the Feugère (organic cereal growers in Seine-Maritime), the Lefranc (dairy cow breeders in the Manche), the Auboussu (cattle and sheep producers in Nièvre), the Mazingarbe (endewiers in the North), the Barban (who raise dairy sheep in the Hautes-Alpes) and the Boyer (market gardeners in Vaucluse). Everywhere one strong attachment to the farm where most often parents, children and grandparents work together, like their ancestors before them, and in the foreground the transmission of this heritage and the know-how of the profession.

Transmission chosen or undergone

Here chosen, with truly a sharing of experience and an openness to change, there more constrained, without much room left for communication, developments, concerted decisions, and where it is more difficult to find one’s place: some have given up more or less consciously of their desire to do something else, others have fought to gain their freedom to undertake.

In particular, the women from the agricultural world, grandmothers and even a few mothers who have not had social and legal recognition (status, salary, rights, retirement, etc.) for the work they have provided. One of them was notably refused, by her husband, her request to become a collaborating spouse, then to set up a Gaec between spouses, a system which has only existed for a little over 10 years.

Show the difficulties and adaptation capacity of operators

The documentary highlights the successes: technical and mechanical progress of agriculture in general, and how these families of farmers took advantage of it, and the more specific adaptations that they put in place to diversify and overcome the difficulties encountered: processing and direct sales, agritourism, reduction of inputs (phytos, fertilizers) to produce in sustainable agriculture, organically or under other labels (HVE, etc.), return to old varieties, promotion of its activities and products to the general public, etc.

By precisely detailing the problems facing the profession: crises, economic, health, climatic; there workload with long days and weeks, and rare weekends and holidays which impact the personal sphere (leisure, family life); THE fluctuations and low price levelsand the responsibility of the agri-food industry and mass distribution in this area.

As well as the lack of income which results from this and which jeopardizes the future of the farm (legal redress, bankruptcies), and sometimes that of the family (separation) and of the farmers themselves (physical and mental health). Testimonies imbued with both emotion and a desire to move forward, which gives the uninitiated an image that is fairly faithful to the realities on the ground.